At first glance, I was like, "Well, good! If you're going to be seemingly racist, it's best that this at least helps the party I marginally prefer!" Of course, thinking about it further, I think if I had all-powerful choices over time, space, and reality, that I would choose instead to live in a world where they were, seemingly, 0% more likely to vote for white Democratic guy or gal just because, they're, you know, white. This tendency strikes me as a bad thing.

And to stop me from taking any kind of schadenfreude from this, "In House races, white Democrats are 38 percentage points less likely to vote Democratic if their candidate is black," the Washington Post story says. Wellllll, I'm not seeing any upside for any part of society here, except perhaps the Prussian Blue sisters.

Which would be much more troubling in its classic meaning, but in this case (and still troubling, just, less so) it refers to the practice of portraying scantily clad women on billboards as headless bodies -- that is, their head is "off-screen" off the top of the billboard I imagine, so they become only some tits and an improbably flat stomach. And my quasi-namorada (yes, another J-quasi) here thought sexism was mostly gone in the US... Of course, besides any other methodological hitches, it may be that Las Vegas is not the best representative, generalizable sample pool, given its being home to the most excessive of American excess.

Meanwhile, apparently Republicans have gotten ensared in another dust up where the White House is seemingly involved in illegal chicanery. Apparently, a Republican operative who played a key role in jamming the phones of a Democratic call center and an (assumedly) non-partisan Firepersons get-out-the-vote mission during elections in New Hampshire in 2002, also made a flock of phone calls to President Por Vida, Herr GW Bush. The Rep. National Committee (RNC) is paying for the legal bills for this guy, James Tobin, even though it has no technical obligation to. RNC Chair Ken Mehlman says that it wasn't on his watch that this shady decision was made, but he does feel the honorable thing to do is to continue paying the bills. It's unclear from the WaPo article exactly who did what, but it seems that the Regional Director for the RNC has already been convicted of something, and this Tobin fellow and two others have already plead guilty in the case. It's also unclear whether or not this was a felony case (a Democratic attorney implies it is, but this is not the best-written article I've ever seen).

What IS clear: Ken Mehlman's standing up for this pack of convicted and admitted criminals. What a mensch.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

It's hard to believe this many US ex-generals are chewing Rummy out, and seemingly publicly.

Of course, this, and the continued revelations about Bush and him being a lying scumbag apparently still isn't enough to convince politicians other than Russ Feingold, or a majority of Americans, to consider impeaching Bush (though a majority do now support censuring him in some way, according to WaPo). (Washington Post.) Sweet goodness and light, preserve the fuck out of us.

In other news, in my continuing "Where da ladies at?" series, featuring shout-outs to countries who've actually managed to achieve statutory equality to the point of electing a female head of state, big ups to South Korea, though apparently, I'm somewhat unique in, you know, giving a shit about this, judging from the number of big news organizations popping up in my Google Search. (In-post correction lazily made instead of changing post: Seemingly, Ms. Han has only been nominated and is not yet confirmed as PM, though she is expected to be. I'm sure that explains the lack of news splash in the MSM...)

Monday, April 03, 2006

Thanks to everyone in reader-land who kept the faith and has checked this poor, benighted blog. Understandably, "ratings" have slumped -- no more of the heady days of over 100 people per month for me!!! -- but I welcome you back to the teeniest of a tidbit, hopefully, the beginning of, you know, more posting in the future.

About Me

Over the past 10 years, I've become much more aware of the deeper issues, currents, and tendencies around world events. Although things in the belly of the beast appear to be worse than I ever imagined, I nonetheless seem to have circled the Mobius strip of cynicism and still ended up on a different side than I began; for me, cynicism and hope appear to be a sort of Ascension cycle or emotional Ouroboros, as I have returned to the beginning and found hope in my cynicism.
I've staked out this little e-space for debate on subjects of interest to me. Real debate, with listening, rebutting, and actual learning -- instead of just lists of "on the one hand" and "the other hand" we're apparently supposed to add up and award the "truth" to the guy or gal with the most "points" -- is what I'm about here.
So, the purpose of this blog: TELL ME WHERE I'M WRONG. I have some strong opinions, and I want to hear where they don't make sense (and where they do). It's only through dialogue -- dialogue with those we don't always (or even ever) agree with that we can change the world and become all that we're capable of.